School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemAn imaginary economy : gambling, commodity, meaning( 2005)This thesis draws on the example of the contemporary phenomenon of electronic gaming machine (EGM) use in the Australian state of Victoria in order to construct an argument in the mode of social theory, relating the psyche's demand for meaning to the nature of consumption in contemporary capitalism. The thesis argues that EGM consumption may be viewed as an example of commodification of the 'interiority' of the subject. Two paths are utilised. The first is a theoretically oriented discussion of the necessity impelling humans to the generation of meaning, and the manner in which this meaning is created. This discussion also encompasses the importance of signification and processes of institution for the maintenance of heteronomous society, and the pseudo-mastery of social institutions. It involves a discussion of the creation of the social individual as consuming individual. The second path is a discussion of empirical material (including official data and the accounts of gamblers) which is used to generate an argument about the socio-economic processes maintaining heteronomous society, and the development of an ethic of life focussed on intensified forms of capitalist consumption. Arguments drawn from Nietzsche, Weber, Castoriadis and others are utilised to illustrate the fragmentation of the originary monad, required for successful creation of the social subject, and how this process of socialisation draws and must draw on processes of meaning creation and signification to create a social relationship formed between society and the psyche, via the concatenation of the social and radical imaginaries. The centrality of the significations of commodity and money is utilised to argue that consumption of EGMs is an exemplary example of contemporary consumption, the consumption of interiority, in which consumption has become a duty and an ethic, providing apparent access to a much desired state where monadic unity is apparently available, at a price.
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ItemHomefront hostilities: the first world war and domestic violence in Victoria( 2004)This thesis examines the influence of the First World War on domestic violence in Victoria, Australia. A reading of court cases, newspaper reports, official records and oral testimonies reveals a connection between the war and individuals' violent behaviour within marriage, apparent during the war and in the decade following the cessation of hostilities. This connection explains what appears to be an increased incidence of domestic violence in the immediate aftermath of the war. A link between veterans' war trauma and domestic violence - frequently assumed in the historiography - existed, but this was just one aspect of the war's impact on domestic violence and did not account for all cases of returned-soldier wife abuse. The war contributed to both veterans' and civilian men's wife abuse by idealising male aggression and by provoking a range of experiences that personally disempowered men. Against the masculine ideal of the fearless Anzac, many men's self-esteem diminished. Failure to enlist, failure to fight, and failure to cope with horrifying memories of battle were some of the ways in which men fell short of their own and society's expectations of manliness. Male insecurity was further exacerbated by women's increased self-assertions. The war afforded many women greater social and economic autonomy, a situation which made wives' separation from violent husbands more viable. The war was influential, too, in shaping social responses to domestic violence. The new masculine hierarchy of wartime affected judicial determination of who was, and who was not, accountable for acts of violence. Official leniency towards returned-soldier perpetrators was noticeable both during and after the war, and in the post-war years such leniency also extended to civilian defendants. While the outbreak of war sparked renewed enthusiasm for male chivalry towards women, this ideal disappeared rapidly after 1918. ln a context of male antagonism towards women's apparent advancement, a new male ambivalence towards wife abuse emerged within the public realm. The notion of men as victims, rather than as brutal tyrants, informed much official reaction to actual cases of domestic violence. Greater official indifference to men's violence against their wives after the First World War was the result not only of men's fears of female encroachment on male privilege, but of a changing interpretation of the causes of domestic violence. The widespread phenomenon of shell shock in soldiers served to further the currency of psychological theories of human behaviour. In the post-war decade, the stereotype of the disturbed violent veteran both emerged from, and influenced, the proceedings of cases of domestic violence in Victorian courts. The idea that returned-soldier violence was a product of battle nerves weighed on cases of wife abuse, regardless of whether the facts of individual cases evinced such a connection. The violence of civilian men also increasingly came to be understood in a psychological framework during the 1920s. As the community's awareness of psychological factors burgeoned, the belief that domestic violence was an outcome of extraordinary stresses on ordinary men's minds began to prevail in the public sphere. Such an understanding helped to dismantle the dominant pre-war stereotype of the working-class 'wife-beater'.
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ItemFactory girls: gender, empire and the making of a female working class, Melbourne and London, 1880-1920( 2007)Between 1880 and 1920, something remarkable happened among the women and girls who worked in the factories of the British Empire. From being universally represented as the powerless victims of industrial capitalism, women factory workers in the cities of Melbourne and London burst onto the stage of history, as bold, disciplined and steadfast activists and demanded their rights, not merely as the equals of working-class men, but as the equals of ladies. The proletarian counterpart of that other subversive fin de siecle type, New Woman, the factory girl became visible at a time when the nature of femininity was being hotly contested, and coincided with the growing militancy of the organised working-class. Her presence in the streets, economic autonomy and love affair with the new mass culture, represented a radical challenge to conventional bourgeois ideas of how women should behave. Her emergence as a new social actor also coincided with a crisis of confidence in Empire, radical disillusionment with the project of modernity and a growing unease about the consequences of urban poverty. As middle-class anxieties proliferated, so surveillance of the factory girl intensified. In this way, female factory workers came under the scrutiny of missionaries, medical men, demographers, social workers, socialists and sociologists. This study traces the role of female factory workers in the emergence of a transnational movement for working-class women's rights. As more women entered the factories in search of independence, their shared experience of exploitation emboldened and empowered them to demand more. During this period, increasing numbers of female factory workers in both cities thus confounded the stereotype of female workers as submissive, shallow and innately conservative, by organising and winning strikes and forming unions of their own. Such explosions of militancy broke down trade unionist prejudice against women workers and laid the foundations of solidarity with male unionists. They also forged of a new model of working-class femininity; based not on the pale imitation of gentility, but one which expressed a profoundly modern sensibility. In the process, women workers fashioned a new political culture which articulated their common interests, and shared identity, as members of a female working class. Yet the rise of working-women's militancy also coincided with the mature articulation of a racialised labourism and the rise of male breadwinner regimes. As the white populations of Empire were re-configured as one race with a common imperial destiny, the corresponding preoccupation with the white settler birth rate, increased hostility and suspicion of women workers. The first decades of the twentieth century thus saw the solidification of a regulatory apparatus which sought to police and discipline young working women in preparing them for their racial destiny as mothers. The contemporaneous demand of the labour movement for a family wage worked to further marginalise wage-earning women, and ultimately reinforced the sexual division of labour.
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ItemA hidden history: the Chinese on the Mount Alexander diggings, central Victoria, 1851-1901( 2005)This thesis interrogates the history of the Chinese on the Mount Alexander gold diggings. Viewing the diggings as a cultural landscape, it argues that goldfields Chinese were more than simple sojourners. It reframes their place in local and national histories as 'settlers' rather than 'sojourners'. In so doing the thesis contends that Chinese-European relations on the goldfields were more complex than orthodox historical interpretations have acknowledged, and that the Chinese were active parties in the international mid-nineteenth century gold seeking phenomenon. A key aim of this thesis is to locate the Chinese gold seekers within the polity of a dynamic expanding imperial British society on the periphery of the settled world. It also considers the enduring Chinese role, albeit on a smaller scale, in these Pacific Rim neo-European settler societies after the gold rushes as the goldfields communities consolidated themselves from the 1860s onwards. While it is true that many returned to China either voluntarily or as a result of state pressure, the initial objective was to examine the continuing history of the goldfields generation of Chinese and their descendants in Australia. That history continued well beyond Federation into the twentieth century. The raison d'etre of this thesis is to challenge the historical neglect of the role of the Chinese in diggings society. This thesis has three complementary themes. The first examines the need to refine the concept of sojourner, and add to it the concept of Chinese 'settler' experience. The second is to portray the Chinese as socially active, politically engaged participants in goldfields life society and the third is to contextualise the experience the Castlemaine Chinese in broader national and international histories of the gold seeking era.
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ItemImperial game: a history of hunting, society, exotic species and the environment in New Zealand and Victoria 1840-1901( 2004)Hunting was a popular and prestigious pastime in Britain and her colonies during the nineteenth century - indeed, during that period, the word 'sport' was used to mean hunting. The Hunt was valued as a form of social and cultural display, and its practice was tightly bound to the Victorian Imperialism, and to the British class system. It was as a result of its cultural connotations that the Hunt arrived in New Zealand and Victoria. The Hunts that developed in these two colonies provide an interesting comparison: while the colonies were very similar in settler culture, they differed enormously in their natural environments. However, the natural environments of New Zealand and Victoria were not conducive to the types of sport seen in Britain, in India, and in Africa. Both New Zealand and Victoria lacked the large, prestigious game animals that Imperial Britons had come to associate with the colonies. What sport was available was judged to be inadequate - the European settlers of New Zealand and Victoria brought with them cultural assumptions about the types of animal worth pursuing (for example, foxes, deer, grouse, pheasants, trout, salmon, and elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, antelopes, lions, tigers and bears) and the Antipodean colonies could not supply them. Other prey species were killed but, lacking cultural significance, they were not considered satisfactory 'sport'. As a result, the wild environments of both New Zealand and Victoria were modified to accord with settler notions of appropriate prey. Both places were settler colonies, and so the animals introduced to provide game were generally those of the British Isles. Once suitable prey became available settlers energetically reproduced culturally familiar hunting forms in the Antipodes, often participating in culturally familiar, but personally unknown, forms of the Hunt for the first time in their new homes. The colonies allowed many settlers to make new claims to authority, and to try to create a more egalitarian society, and these aspirations were both expressed through the Hunt. Settlers used symbolic game species to express cultural relationships with each other, and with their new, colonial landscapes. In a colonial context culturally important animal species were used to express belonging, and possession. This thesis examines the cultural phenomenon of 'the Hunt' in the Antipodes, and its embodiment in symbolic species of animal.
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ItemIntersections of conflict: policing and criminalising Melbourne’s traffic, 1890-1930( 2005-07)Every single person on earth is a road-user; and, although an integral part of our society, the management of traffic is a low priority for most. Authorities constantly work to lessen the tension between the free-flow of traffic and traffic safety. Consequently, the management of traffic and its subsequent problems has consumed more time, money and resources than any other item on the public agenda. Between 1890 and 1930, urban road-traffic in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, as in other world cities, underwent a revolution as speeds increased 500%. The motor-vehicle exacerbated existing traffic problems with increased trips and vehicle numbers. Authorities separated the various road users with road demarcations, and placed upon the Victoria Police the responsibility of managing the heterogeneous and complex traffic mix. By the close of the 1920s, all the components—policing, case and statute law, and the physical infrastructure—of the contemporary traffic management system were firmly in place. Introducing motor-transport into a centuries old road network designed for much slower modes of transport, was similar to putting high speed trains, capable of hundreds of kilometres an hour, onto conventional tracks. The marriage of old systems and new technology required a plethora of controls, procedures and safeguards to attain an acceptable level of traffic deaths. Nonetheless, no matter how many modifications, it persisted as a hybrid system. It could not be made to work efficiently.
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ItemMigration, work and community: Italian speakers in the Walhalla gold mining district 1865-1915( 2005-12)This thesis studies migration, work and community among Italian speakers in the Walhalla (situated in Victoria, Australia) gold mining district between 1865 and 1915, and analyzes the outcomes for those who either lived here for a time (as ‘sojourners’ in conventional historical parlance) or settled permanently in the district. It proposes to look way from the ‘big picture’ historical approach to Italian settlement in Australia, with its focus upon the large migrant communities in the capital cities, and instead examines the finer texture of small places and particular lives. The thesis offers a reconstructed history of Walhalla’s Italian community that challenges the prevailing emphasis of the district’s Anglo-centric history by using seemingly small and ‘insignificant’ events in order to develop broader themes which test and re-define ‘big picture’ history. In doing so, the thesis seeks to push the boundaries of understanding about what early Italians may have made of their lives, in terms of the experiences of specific individuals and family groups. Firstly, the thesis questions the adequacy of contemporary understanding of what it means ‘to migrate’, and its use in historical analysis. It employs the Walhalla study in order to re-assess and re-apply the term ‘migration’ so as to provide a broader and better understanding of its meaning to Italians in a nineteenth century context. Has the word ‘migration’ changed over time, or has its use oversimplified and formularized a complex and diverse process in time, place and belonging? Is there a useful place for re-applying the term in a more constructive and inclusive way? Secondly, the thesis re-examines and reconsiders the concepts of ‘migrant’, ‘sojourner’ and ‘work/migrant cluster’ and their application in our historiography. In particular, it focuses on the role of sojourners and their place within the migration process. A distinction between ‘migrant’ and ‘sojourner’ can only be drawn artificially and with hindsight and the use of these expressions in conventional historiography is unhelpful. Their application is problematic as strategies put into place prior to emigration could shift after arrival and the decision to settle permanently could be an imperceptible process made on an individual basis over time. Thirdly, the thesis evaluates Charles Price’s well-accepted theory that migrant settlements often developed in certain Australian districts because pioneer migrants were involved in the same type of work which, in turn, led to the ‘accidental’ development of migrant communities. Should Price’s theory be re-formulated to address the possibility that early migrant settlements may have been more complex than previously understood, and that there were many facets contributing to the evolution of a migrant community not exclusively attributable to one occupational group? Fourthly, the thesis reviews and examines the concept of ‘community’, its construction and what it may have meant to an early settler society and Italians within it. It explores the possibility that our national history may have been more inclusive, fluid and open ended than previously understood and that to completely separate, or isolate, different national or ethnic groups may be an incorrect modelling of early Victorian settlements. The thesis questions whether a broader theory should be applied to challenge the idea of a dominant British versus a non-British position towards the construction of ‘community’. By re-constructing an Italian community, the thesis teases out the dynamics at work within the Italian migrant settlement and its interaction and dialogue with Walhalla’s wider society. My thesis emphasizes the relevance of micro-studies of this nature and its findings need to be extended by studies of other minority groups in other small places. Their accumulated implications should influence the broader historical understanding of the national and international patterns of Italian immigrant settlement in Australia and other New World countries.
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ItemStriking it rich: material culture and family stories from the Central Victorian goldfields( 2007)This thesis examines family and community experience on the central Victorian goldfields. Using a series of case studies, it creates narratives about particular and connected individuals who arrived in the goldmining communities of Creswick and Maldon during the 1850s and 1860s and who became longstanding residents in their respective townships. The stories begin with the material traces of these goldfields settlers. Houses, photographs, paintings and a trade union banner become touchstones for exploring goldfields history. These examples of material culture provide tangible connections to past lives; however, as historical resources they must be interpreted, if they are to inform our understandings of the past. Contextualization is the key. Combining public history approaches - such as material culture, vernacular architecture and cultural landscape study - with traditional social history methodologies, it becomes possible to embed objects in space and place and then link them to particular individuals. As a collection of historical narratives about the experiences of families, this thesis challenges prevailing characterizations of the goldfields as individualistic and masculine places. The case studies reveal a lost landscape of family settlement, and they demonstrate that family is an appropriate and useful frame for the study of goldfields history. Furthermore, they contribute to the interpretations of goldfields heritage as public history by suggesting a practical means by which lived experience can be made visible. Storytelling is a powerful tool for both the historian and heritage professional. This thesis offers a practical means of exploring not only the vibrant historical tapestry that is the central Victorian goldfields; it also serves as a test case of the manifold ways material culture and narrative interpretations can enrich community history.
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ItemCharles Joseph La Trobe: the making of a governor( 2002)The central argument developed in this thesis is that Charles Joseph La Trobe was a highly distinctive individual whose background and experiences during the first four decades of his life to 1839 shaped his character and informed his administration, firstly as Superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales until 1851, and then as Victoria's first Lieutenant-Governor from 1851 to 1854. His Huguenot descent isolated him from the traditional British mould, and yet, for all that, he was very much the typical Englishman with all the attitudes then prevailing in the educated middle-class. His Moravian faith and the advanced Moravian school system in which he was nurtured set him apart from the norm of those recruited to the Colonial Office as representatives of the imperial power of Great Britain. He was altogether, in fact, an unusual choice as administrator of a valuable and remote colony, having none of the administrative experience, military training or aristocratic background usually sought in vice-regal envoys. La Trobe came from a deeply religious and highly intellectual family whose evangelicalism and social consciences dominated their lives. He was drawn to the outdoor life and to the landscape wherever he went in his extensive travels, seeing it as God's creation, and he described what he saw and experienced fully in his four published books and in his works of art. From his youth, he developed a lifelong passion for Switzerland, the country where he formed his closest friendships. Acknowledging the seriousness with which he regarded his Australian posting as a representative of the Crown, La Trobe's every action was governed and, to a certain extent, hampered by his allegiance to the Governor in Sydney and the Colonial Office in London. La Trobe's actions, ideas, assumptions and behaviours during his fifteen years in office in Melbourne may, however, be best understood by an examination of the way his character was shaped, especially by the influences on him of the Moravian faith and education, by his passion for travel, and by the devotion and support of his family and friends in England and in Switzerland. La Trobe departed from office a wearied and disappointed man whose contribution to the development of the colony was not immediately recognised. His was a vision of a cultured, economically viable and Christian society, with equality of opportunity for all. Any recognition of his achievements eluded him, the obvious negativities of his administration, especially regarding the Aboriginal people and the goldfields administration, obscuring his successes. Charles Joseph La Trobe was a complex man of striking contradictions: he was capable of great courage, yet he often appeared timid and self-effacing; he was charming and sociable at times, yet he loved nothing better than to escape the weight of his duties by riding into the 'bush'; he had strong views, but often came across as unassertive.
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ItemPicturing politics: cartoons of Melbourne's Labour Press, 1890-1919( 2008)This thesis undertakes a comprehensive survey of the cartoons published in Melbourne's labour press from 1890 to 1919. Through an examination of the picturing of labour politics, this thesis points to the role of social recognition and collective identification in the formation of the political labour movement. It is argued that the key icons of the Worker and Mr Fat embodied an esteemed identity, a labour collective self, which subsumed different forms of labour movement politics and presented a number of claims for rights and social recognition. In addition, these icons relied on contemporary standards of masculinity to give respectability to labour's new form of politics. The criticisms made in the cartoons of the commercial press are examined. These criticisms help show how the idea of the public was employed in the legitimisation of the labour politics. The representations of politicians are also explored. Conservative politicians were shown as hopelessly mired in their own particularity. In comparison with depictions of the generic Worker, the cartoons were ambivalent in their representations of labour movement politicians and the Labor Party. The cartoons also tapped directly into the historically contingent and varied discourses of race and nation. The nation was always defined by its working-class characteristics and labour's enemies were shown as inimical to genuine Australian values. While the cartoons rarely treated race as a subject, they did employ it as a tool in presenting other issues, in particular class and political enemies. There was a consistent pattern of depicting enemies—the Fatman, or conservative politicians—as less than white. Finally, allegorical women were far more commonly depicted than actual women. By consistently using the female form to represent things other than women, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge women in their own right, the labour movement cartoons failed to recognise women as a valid subject of politics. It is argued that this points to a misrecognition at the heart of labour politics.